SFPD denies racial profiling in pot busts

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One day after a study by the American Civil Liberties Union reported that black people in San Francisco were more than four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as whites in 2010, the Police Department denied it was engaged in racial profiling.

The ACLU report, which was part of a national study that analyzed federal data from 2001 to 2010, found that San Francisco led California when it came to racial disparity in arrest rates. There are no differences between marijuana usage among whites and blacks, the study concluded.

The ACLU said that although arrests were not a high priority in some cities, including San Francisco, the racial disparity showed a “staggering racial bias.”

In 2010, the report said, San Francisco’s arrest rate for marijuana possession among African Americans (per 100,000 population) was 192, while the same rate for whites was 44. Black residents made up 6 percent of the city’s population.

“The San Francisco Police Department does not racially profile,” the department said in a statement Wednesday. “No one is arrested in sufficient numbers for marijuana possession here in San Francisco to substantiate such a claim.”

The department noted that total misdemeanor arrests for marijuana dropped to 11 in 2011, the year after California lowered the penalty for marijuana possession of less than 1 ounce from a misdemeanor to an infraction. Chief Greg Suhr reviewed all 11 arrests and concluded that the marijuana charges were secondary to more serious offenses in all the cases, the department said.

Of the 11 suspects, five were African American, five were white and one was Latino, police said.

The arrests “were made using sound police procedure pertaining to criminal activity and not by racial profiling,” the department said.

The statement did not directly address the 2001-2010 data in the ACLU’s report. A police spokesman was not available for comment late Wednesday.